The Kotel Dispute: Is it Frumminess or Finance

Did the ultra-Orthodox parties in Israel pressure Binyamin Netanyahu to renege on the Kotel Agreement for religious reasons? Or is it for financial reasons? Based on my observations, I think it’s finance, not frumminess that has led to this mess.

As you know, the liberal Jewish community has been shaken by Netanyahu’s reneging on the agreement that would have allowed for a liberal Jewish presence at the traditionally Orthodox-controlled plaza of the Western Wall, known as the Kotel.

An agreement that took years and that made all the parties equally unhappy (the sign of a reasonable compromise) was summarily dismissed by Netanyahu because the ultra-Orthodox threatened to dissolve his coalition government. They cited spiritual and religious concerns over the supposed pollution by liberal Jews of the supposedly holiest space in Jewish tradition.

But what if religious concerns weren’t the main reason to scuttle the agreement? What if something else lurks behind the prayer shawls of the self-righteous?

Let me explain. Some years ago, I found myself in Jerusalem standing near the “The Kotel.” I had my prayerbook and other accoutrements necessary for reciting the morning prayers. As I made my way into the inner plaza to stand beneath the wall, I was accosted by the leader of a service being held nearby. He beckoned me over to the table where he and another man who were on duty said a prayer for my family. At the conclusion of the prayer, he asked for a donation.

When I refused, he dismissed me angrily and turned to another tourist who had entered the plaza.

As a result, I began to look at this holy place with different eyes. Intrigued, I took a place near the Kotel Plaza and watched. I saw at least 20 tables set up on the men’s side (where only men are allowed). Each table had two gabbais on duty. They seemed to have specific tasks: One would approach a tourist entering the inner plaza while the other would say the prayers and hold out his hand for a donation.

Fascinated, I stood watch for four hours and took note of the dynamic unfolding before me. The tables I followed were able to work on at least 15 people per hour. I then impersonated a reporter and started doing “exit interviews” of the donors. The donations ranged from $5 to $50 American with the average coming out to a little more than $20.

Do the math: 20 tables times 15 donors times $20 equals $6,000 an hour. Even if you take into account inclement weather during the winter, and subtract one day for the Sabbath (when use of money is forbidden) you have 52 weeks times 8 hours a day times 6 days a week at $6,000 an hour. That works out to $14,976,000 a year. Let’s call it $15 million.

These are cash transactions that are not recorded. Perhaps the money is being used wisely for some public purpose. But it seems more likely that the $15 million a year is going into the pockets of the tables’ sponsors. Given these circumstances, doesn’t it make sense that Kotel management would not want incursion (read competition) from liberal Jewish representation that would take not only space but customers from them? A liberal Jewish section of the Wall would attract a good number of tourists who are liberal themselves. Certainly the tour groups led by liberal rabbis would give their business to liberal minyans.

Is it the possible introduction of liberal observances that motivates the ultra-Orthodox pressure exerted against the agreement – or is it something more base? Could the loss of millions of dollars of unreported revenue be a contributing factor?

I would like to believe otherwise. But after decades of watching the ultra-Orthodox in Israel use their electoral clout to extract money and benefits from the government, I think that their concern about liberals at the Kotel has at least as much to do with money as with religion. And that’s the bottom line.
Steven Bayar is rabbi at Congregation Bnai Israel in Millburn, New Jersey.

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Comments

To me, the main issue here is not why the Orthodox opposed the compromise, but why the government continues to surrender to their positions. Whether the Orthodox opposed the settlement of the issue for financial reasons or out of religious bigotry or whatever, the government’s surrender to them is just one more step in threatening the connection of Israel to the bulk of world Jewery.

This article uses an anecdote and conjecture to posit the underpinnings of an explosive, contemporary issue. I am surprised and slightly alarmed that the author did not cite any additional research — no follow up with the organizations in question, Israeli charity authorities, or other studies (we can assume that Rabbi Bayar is not the first person to be impressed by the Kotel groups’ fundraising skills!).

I think that this article is irresponsible and premature. Additional research would be necessary prior to one offering a legitimate potential reason behind the conflict.

I don’t know how many years ago your research was conducted, Rabbi, but I met with a rabbi in the Jerusalem area on Skype this morning. He says he has never seen the situation you’re describing, and that this article may, indeed, be very misleading and unfair.

I can’t simply blame an Israeli government from bending to the political forces that threaten it, even on the Kotel agreement.

But Rabbi Bayar’s analysis of the income producing potential of the Kotel for the Haredi groups that control the space surely has considerable validity.

It would be impossible to “test” the validity of his calculations unless it was done surreptitiously, because the powers-that-be would curtail the fundraising activity during any official “survey”.

I’m not saying that the potential loss this considerable tourist revenue is the only reason that the Haredi parties made their demands to abandon the Kotel Agreement, but I cannot help suspecting that it surely contributed (no pun intended) to it.

Is there anything in the voluminous Agreement, itself, that addresses this potential loss of “tourist” revenue on the Haredi “side” of the Kotel?

What a remarkably poor article.
Bad reasoning and weak assumptions in order to fight back against the decisions at the Kotel.
I don’t like what is going on there but am not surprised. We don’t need to search for hidden agendas or secondary rationales for their fighting against the non-orthodox Jews out there.
In what reality do you think that the Haredim would welcome Conservative and Reform services?

If you are considering the potential financial implications, $15 million while is very little compared to the money the Orthodox communities gain from the government. One study estimated it $2.3 Billion in 2016.

For almost a decade there was a fight to get non-Orthodox rabbis who serve on regional councils to be recognized as rabbis and paid by the government. Instead of being paid by the Ministry for Religious Services they agreed that they would be paid by the Ministry of Culture and Sport.

I have not followed this past around 2013 so I am sure there are others that know more, but as non-Orthodox groups gain acceptance there likely is a concern that eventually government funding will have to include their institutions. Such a change will be well more than $15m.

Mr. Benson, With all due respect, I sense you are approaching this Kotel issue more like a diaspora community issue and not so much like the political issue of a sovereign nation that it actually is.

I care not one hoot whether Haredim “welcome” us to the Robinson’s Arch Egalitarian Kotel area. I just thought our representatives and their’s had taken the time needed to negate a detailed compromise that addressed all issues and that the Government could be held fast to the bargain.

I forgot that in Israel, maintaining a coalition government makes all promises subject to re-negotiation. If we do not have the political muscle to get our own Egalitarian Kotel space, we just don’t succeed.

I have no idea what the Haredim, in effect, surrendered in exchange for spending their political capital on forcing the Government to renege on the Kotel deal, but that’s the way sovereign governments operate.

This, as opposed to the Diaspora where Jewish communities operate much more by consensus and need to stand by previous agreements or weaken the glue that maintains Shalom Bayis in the community.

In Israel there is far far less value on Shalom Bayis in the give and take of parliamentary political life.

Is this a joke? I’ve been to the wall many times. Yes the beggars can be aggressive, but the notion that they get this kind of money is preposterous. People give small change. I can see and hear them drop the money in the cup.

Thanks for communicating with me, Rabbi, and letting me know the experiences you describe are current. I can tell you one thing for sure, your persepective REALLY made me want to visit Israel even more than I already did. It’s easy to live in America and accidentally romanticize Israel and Israelis. Someday I’ll get there and see the truth myself.

This blog serves to “advance the conversation.” We have often published pieces, and approved comments, that neither we, nor the majority of our readers, nor our funders, agree with. Such is necessary to have open conversations.

If you review the comments you have written, you will notice a trend – those that have been respectful to others, and on-topic, have been approved. Those which have been off-topic, or insulting have been rejected. It is the same policy we follow for everyone.

Rabbi Bayar has done us all a great service by exposing that the Kotel has become a “shmaltz groob” (Yiddish for “pit of chicken fat = money pit”).
I grew up in yeshivot until I was 21 and then continued Jewish learning and community service until past post graduate studies. Most American and Israeli Orthodoxy have nothing do do with this venal thirst. But in Israel there are enough who are involved in this monetary lust that they can control the Chief Rabbinate, and some of the yeshivot that are government funded and whose “students” are supported until they wish, avoiding IDF service. Many other Orthodox serve proudly.
The great fear of the venal and their political leaders is if they give in just a little, they will lose control of Marriage, Divorce, Conversion, the Kotel and the yeshiva world, and all the money that these provide. It has nothing to do with Halakhah. They have even rejected legitimate Orthodox rabbis from officiating at these rituals.
Unfortunately in the disfinctional fractured Israeli political system these Haredi groups have the capacity to depose or empower any government. Even the opposition cannot form a majority without their support. Only a unity government, led by the non Haredi parties could overcome this. But can the thirst for power overcome the almost innate need for for each party to govern alone, to Israel’s detriment.

This discussion has finally devolved to an admission of a problem I raised in my first comment on this article: religious bigotry of Jewish extremists. We non-orthodox are not to be endured by them as Jews praying in locations important to our heritage as Jews. If that is the Israel which is to exist, then Zionism was a lie, and everything done by diaspora Jews on behalf of Israel was (and is) a service only to those Jews following the most restrictive view of the meaning of our Bible and traditions.

I would not dispute the possibility but I also noted that when this blew up, Americans were quick to say that they would no longer give money to Israeli causes. Money long ago pushed god off the table. “You shall have no other god before you”, long ago bit the dust.

I don’t believe this is true. I have been to the Kotel many times. Years ago (same time as the alleged events?) I went nearly every day. I never witnessed any such behavior. If it did occur, it certainly was not sanctioned by any rabbinic or political authority, that is certain, and it is certain that Rabbi Nevensol, the Chief Rabbi of the Kotel, would not allow it (which is likely what happened if it did occur – it was likely a group of renegades who were quickly shut down when the Orthodox (yes Orthodox) caretakers of the Kotel shul got wind of it.)

But this article is so sloppy in its research, so offensive in its innuendo (“What if something else lurks….”) it reminds one of the Medieval Christian libels against the Jews, including the blood libel .It’s hard to imagine that a fellow Jew could lob such a knuckle-ball.

But what is even more troubling is the author’s firm belief – “the bottom line” as he puts it – that the Orthodox objection to turning the Kotel into a pluralistic site is anything but ideological. The reason this troubles me is because it shows either a lack of knowledge or a refusal to acknowledge the reality of Orthodox belief. They – that is, we – really do believe that God gave Moshe the Torah at Mt. Sinai and that there is a legitimate, unbroken chain of Oral Torah from then until now. No politics can alter that belief, and all politics from the religious sector are a projection of that belief.

Shmuel Rabinovitch, not Rabbi Nevensol, is the Rabbi of the Western Wall. He was appointed to the position in 1995 by Prime Minister Rabin and both chief rabbis of Israel following the death of Rabbi Meir Yehuda Getz.

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